OCEANPORT, N.J. - The weather-battered Monmouth Park season ends Sunday on a fairly positive note.

An exceptionally rainy summer on the Jersey Shore took a toll on every business in the area. At Monmouth, the showers bruised the business numbers as attendance and handle dipped. Given the elements, the damage was not as severe as it might have been.

"We all know about the weather this year," said Bob Kulina, the track's vice president and general manager. "The bottom line was that the core meet, with all factors considered, was a success."

The board of stewards at Great Lakes Downs in Muskegon, Mich., on Friday suspended jockey Jeff Faul for six years and fined him $7,500 after determining he had carried an illegal electrical device when he won the sixth race on Aug. 24 aboard Run for You.

According to a news release from the Michigan racing commissioner's office, an electrical device was found on the track on the morning of Aug. 25, and the Great Lakes board of stewards has indicated there is "credible evidence showing the device being discarded by Faul."

ELMONT, N.Y. - Wild Berry is a standout among seven 2-year-old New York-bred fillies entered in Sunday's $100,000-added Joseph A. Gimma at Belmont Park.

Wild Berry, a winner of 2 of 3 starts, is coming off a seven-length romp in a first-level allowance race here on Sept. 10. A daughter of Wild Event, Wild Berry also won her career debut impressively at Saratoga July 24. In that race, she pressed the pace and drew off to win by 3 1/2 lengths.

ELMONT, N.Y. - In the Bertram F. Bongard a year ago, Funny Cide emerged as a budding star with his nine-length win. Sunday at Belmont Park, the Funny Cide team has Saratoga Episode in the Bongard, a New York-bred race for 2-year-old males.

The odds are against another Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner emerging from this year's $100,000-added Bongard, but that's not to say the nine runners in the field lack talent.

ETOBICOKE, Ontario - Strut the Stage will prep for several of the world's richest races as the heavy favorite in Sunday's $271,750 Sky Classic Handicap at Woodbine.

The Grade 2 stakes has lured five others, including the 3-year-old Mobil, who figures to be the second choice in the 1 3/8-mile turf race.

SAN MATEO, Calif. - Dennis Ward would be the first to tell you that he underestimated Razen Hazen.

Purchased by Ward as a $3,500 yearling, Razen Hazen will likely be favored Sunday, meeting six rivals and attempting to win his second stakes in the $60,000-added San Mateo Stakes at six furlongs. He will be given time off after the race, Ward said, "win, lose or draw, to let him grow."

Ward, who trains his son Wesley's northern California string, said he didn't know Razen Hazen was fast - until he raced.

POMONA, Calif. - The choices are clear for trainer Dan Hendricks and stable star Reba's Gold. The 6-year-old Reba's Gold can start favored in a competitive $100,000 stakes race Sunday at Fairplex Park, or wait six days and be among the leading contenders - but not the favorite - in a relatively weak $500,000 stakes race Saturday at Santa Anita.

"If I knew [Sunday] was going to be easy on him, I'd run in both races without hesitation," Hendricks said.

CHICAGO - In September, the Arlington racetrack was nearly deserted each day during the last half-hour of morning training. An inordinate number of exercising horses seemed to be wearing saddle towels initialed "MR." And perched on his pony in front of the winner's circle, cell phone in hand, following his sets of horses as they came down the stretch, was MR himself, Mike Reavis.

CHICAGO - Backstage, following stakes races at Arlington, Dick Duchossois or a substitute executive leads the winning connections in a champagne toast. That was fine, but after Tenpins won the Washington Park Handicap at Arlington last fall, Don Winfree was holding a cold beer.

There are few frills to Winfree, a grizzled veteran trainer of the Kentucky circuit. And that applies to his assessment of Tenpins's 2003 campaign.

"We'll know how his year has gone after Sunday," Winfree said, reached by phone this week.

CHICAGO - The leaves have started turning, the nights have gotten chilly, and horse trailers have been rumbling down the expressway from Arlington Heights to Stickney the last two weeks. Chicago racing moves from Arlington Park to Hawthorne Race Course on Sunday, but there is no easing into a fall-winter meet that runs through Jan. 3, 2004. The opening-day program features the Grade 2 Hawthorne Gold Cup, with a purse bumped from $500,000 to $750,000 and a six-horse field that boils down to a marquee match race between Perfect Drift and Tenpins.